Office 2003/XP Add-in: Remove Hidden Data

[Dave Baker]

Microsoft has released a program that scrubs various "hidden" information from Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and Excel documents (XP or 2003 versions):

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...&displaylang=en

"With this add-in you can permanently remove hidden and collaboration data, such as change tracking and comments, from Word 2003/XP, Excel 2003/XP, and PowerPoint 2003/XP files."

"You should run the Remove Hidden Data add-in on files when you are ready to publish them. This is because some of the data that the tool removes is used by Office for collaboration features, such as Track Changes, Comments, and Send for Review."

[Kirk Maldonado]

Here's an opposing point of view. This article was in found in WOODY's OFFICE WATCH, 20 January 2004, Vol 9 No 2, located at: http://www.woodyswatch.com/office/archtemplate.asp?v9-n02

1. MS HIDDEN DATA REMOVAL TOOL NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME

I warned ya last week.

Microsoft's "Remove Hidden Data" add-in is a mess. The add-in is supposed to strip all that potentially embarrassing hidden text out of Office files. In fact, it does a pretty good job most of the time, but it's riddled with errors. Microsoft posted a Knowledge Base article http://woodyswatch.com/kb?834636 with 15 known bugs. You folks have written to me with several more:

Dozens of you wrote to say that after installing the tool, Word, on exit, always says that "Changes have been made that affect the global template...", even though no changes were made.

WOWser JB went on to say: "now I can't get rid of the "Remove Hidden Data..." item in the File menu (I tried using "ctrl-alt -" to delete the menu item but that didn't work. The menu line doesn't do anything but I just can't seem to get rid of it."

JDV: "You have to save the original file immediately before using the removal tool. Even if you have just opened the original file and haven't made any changes. Also, it seems to have a memory leak or something. After about 3 - 5 uses, I usually get an "out of memory or disk space" error message when attempting to name the new file. Restarting Word clears the problem."

AS writes that he tried to install it, but got the message "This product cannot be installed on this computer. This product requires Windows 2000 or later." If you check the KB article, you'll see that MS claims "The installation and the use of the Remove Hidden Data add-in on Microsoft Windows 2000 have not been tested by Microsoft." So what is it?

CS writes: "Right out of the box it stalled on my first document."

And so it goes....